How to deal with an angry and resistant AUDHD teen who also wants to go to college

[Anonymous]

could use some advice/commiseration. Son is almost 18. A senior who is college bound. Already been accepted to two engineering schools.

He has ASD and ADHD and major executive functioning issues where I have had to sit with him for the last 3 years, monitoring everything and reviewing to see if he did the assignment right, turned it in, etc. As you can imagine, that did wonders for our relationship. He is very rigid. can be mean when angry and is very angry. Angry at our help and says he never wanted it and we should have just let him manage. we told him we would back off but he would have to work with an executive functioning coach and get tutoring. He hates his coach probably because she challenges him. He wants zero help and for us to butt out of his life, let him do what he wants and handle his life how he wants.
And, when he gets angry, it is so unpleasant and he brings up grievances from years and years ago and it becomes just an anger dump of stuff that he still can't let go of what we did wrong.
The problem is that he also wants to go to college and if we do that, the odds are that his grades are going to be such that I don't feel comfortable paying tens of thousands of dollars. I thought for sure that he would be more open to figuring out how to manage his stuff with a third party but he is mad at her too now. The first question is should I just dump the executive functioning coach and tutoring and just let him sink/swim?
I guess the second question becomes this: has your rigid, refuse to listen but also refuse to acknowledge challenges ASD teen, ever come around to just saying " I need help." or "I want to figure out how to manage my life/work" or just say "I'm sorry for yelling at you-I know you have the best intentions" and talk in a way that is respectful and kind?
I'm just feeling discouraged about my son's ability to hold on to anger, not be open to any advice at all, and whether we will ever have an open relationship. I am also concerned that if we are not comfortable sending him to college and tell him that. he will spiral downward.

[Anonymous]

Send him to college. Why would you want to continue controlling him? You need to let him go and find his own way.

[Anonymous]

Have him commute 1-2 years to get better.

[Anonymous]

let him sink or swim see how he manages in his own NOW
because in college you cannot help him, make sure he turned in assignments etc
and manage his time
letting go hard especially with the habit of the guardrails but let go of the rope

[Anonymous]

if he wants to go to college let him go
let him learn the lessons now and he may learn some very hard ones and college
if he has a therapist or testing make sure he signs up in the office of disabilities for accommodations

[Anonymous]

Op, our daughter is ASD, ADHD, anxiety disorder and, as a result, was a poor student. We hired endless tutors to get her through high school and college. We actually on occasion had to go sit with her to keep her on point for homework. Skme off the top of my head comments:

1) go to a local college so it’s easy for you to help. High Point would have been a good fit but was too far away.
2) I think your son needs a gap year.
3) engineering is one tough major. Does your son have a gift at math?. My other neurotypical child, but gifted, started in engineering at a top state school but quit after Calc 3.
4) if your DS is adamant about engineering, try to encourage him to attend a school with humanities, etc. so he can easily shift at a later date. So no Georgia Tech.
5) look at schools that have great support offices. We chose GMU for this reason.
6) can your son write papers? This turned out to be the biggest hurdle for DD. She had coasted on an IEP at Langley so we didn’t “get it” until her first papers came due at GMU. If so, avoid the SLACs or any program that on ones a lot of writing
7) hook up with the school’s disability services office early in the summer preceding attendance. GMU wanted fresh (it had been Four years) testing, which took time, but the office would t even talk to us until we had fresh testing.
8) consider a single. DD got thrown into a quad with three student athletes who got up very early. Disability services sorted that out.
9) Did you look at WPI?

Best of luck. I’m sure I’ll think of more. You do have a therapist in place? Meds? Tutors? You want to make sure all of that is in order before the start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: could use some advice/commiseration. Son is almost 18. A senior who is college bound. Already been accepted to two engineering schools.

He has ASD and ADHD and major executive functioning issues where I have had to sit with him for the last 3 years, monitoring everything and reviewing to see if he did the assignment right, turned it in, etc. As you can imagine, that did wonders for our relationship. He is very rigid. can be mean when angry and is very angry. Angry at our help and says he never wanted it and we should have just let him manage. we told him we would back off but he would have to work with an executive functioning coach and get tutoring. He hates his coach probably because she challenges him. He wants zero help and for us to butt out of his life, let him do what he wants and handle his life how he wants.
And, when he gets angry, it is so unpleasant and he brings up grievances from years and years ago and it becomes just an anger dump of stuff that he still can't let go of what we did wrong.
The problem is that he also wants to go to college and if we do that, the odds are that his grades are going to be such that I don't feel comfortable paying tens of thousands of dollars. I thought for sure that he would be more open to figuring out how to manage his stuff with a third party but he is mad at her too now. The first question is should I just dump the executive functioning coach and tutoring and just let him sink/swim?
I guess the second question becomes this: has your rigid, refuse to listen but also refuse to acknowledge challenges ASD teen, ever come around to just saying " I need help." or "I want to figure out how to manage my life/work" or just say "I'm sorry for yelling at you-I know you have the best intentions" and talk in a way that is respectful and kind?
I'm just feeling discouraged about my son's ability to hold on to anger, not be open to any advice at all, and whether we will ever have an open relationship. I am also concerned that if we are not comfortable sending him to college and tell him that. he will spiral downward.

Do you or your son have a therapist? I would deal with the anger issues because life is going to be nore difficult when he treats the outside just like he has been treating you.

Good luck! It is so difficultcand as a fellow parent I wish you all the best

[Anonymous]

I have an aversion to wasting money so I’d struggle with paying tuition u see the circumstances.

I also have experienced having to spend money to make progress and move to the next level.

If I hadn’t exhausted my budget, I’d let my kid go to college and sink or swim. For a semester. And then revisit.

My son did come around to asking for help and appreciating what we offer. But it wasn’t right out of HS. There was a bunch of failure and really tough times.

[Anonymous]

Is he nice to other people? Teachers? Coaches? Peers?

[Anonymous]

He got it. He gets to go.
Best you can do is: understand he should probably only take 12 credits Freshmen Year, 1st Semester -- to start. Twelve credits is still Full Time. Or sign-up for more than 12 and be open to dropping a class or two when he falls behind. Be open to it taking more than 4 years to graduate from college.
He gets to try. He got in. He deserves to go.

[Anonymous]

Community college for a year. It will be good practice for both of you and him handling (more of) it on his own.

[Anonymous]

Too often parents don't want to spend the money. Too often the parents come up with some reason the student isn't ready for college. He earned it. He gets to go.

[Anonymous]

You are seeing that it’s past time you let him handle this. Even if he starts to fail, he will still get into college somewhere at this point. He will probably fail out, but will be happier managing it himself. Expensive for you.

[Anonymous]

How do you think he will do without you being on top of him? How does HE think he’ll do?

Has he ever had a job?

[Anonymous]

My kids issues are somewhat different (but similar in some ways).
Do you think you can sort of set terms in advance. Like we will pay for college if you agree to —
HIPAA and ferpa waivers
Sharing grades with us
If grades drop below a C in any class, you ageee you will start meeting with the EF coach and a tutor for that class
You will check in via FT once per week…
Or whatever you think will be constructive. It might help to negotiate this with a therapist.

Have you ever read the Ross Greene books? They might help.

I find that it often helps to put the question to him first. We are paying a lot of money for college. What do you think would be some commitments you can make that will help us feel that this is a good investment in your future? If they come up with the terms, there is more buy in.